Limitations of Traditional Printed Books:
In today's modern world, there is a vast ocean of information available on subjects of interest to users. This information is difficult to collect, organize, and present in a manner that is both focused and flexible. For example, publishing a collection of information in a book allows the book's author to present a focused presentation of the material in an order defined by the pages of the book. However, a book is not flexible. There is only one linear path through the book from start to finish, and that order is defined by the book's author and not customizable or adaptable by the user (e.g. reader). Furthermore, if a user wishes to explore content outside of the book there is no easy way for the user to identify relevant additional content to explore and to access and review additional content with any level of detail. This is particularly challenging where the user wishes to explore additional content that was created after the book was written. Even if the user can use outside resources to access additional content after the book is published, the user has no easy way to record the additional content for later consideration, either by her/himself or by others.
Limitations of the Web:
Alternatively, information may be published as a collection of separate pages containing links from one page to another, such as Internet web pages. Information published in this manner is much more flexible, as a user can navigate through the information following the links between the pages. Also, web content is frequently updated so additional content created after the initial publishing of the webpage is made available to users. However, there is little organization to web content. It is difficult for a user to locate useful related content if that content is not directly linked to or from the page the user is reading.
Limitations of Usual Web Browsing Methods:
It is also difficult if not impossible for the user to gain the benefit of the experiences of others who have navigated through the same collection of information. At best, the user is presented with a page having links to other pages, but the user has no understanding of how other users have navigated through those links, why a particular user selected a particular link or path, or what path a particular user chose to follow through a collection of information.
It is also difficult for the user to make a record of the user's own navigation through the content, to present a record of the user's navigation to others, and for users to provide additional content and link that content to the visited content. Users are not generally permitted to modify the content of web pages to add additional links. While users can create their own pages and provide links to the visited content, such links are only associated with the user's own page, and are not accessible from the visited content. Consequently, although a group of web pages might well represent a useful collection of information, it is difficult for users of the web to individually or collectively shape such a collection into a coherent whole.
Limitations of Printed Textbooks:
Textbooks are important mechanisms for conveying information and learning new information. Students often make notes while reading textbooks to help them recall or process new information. Notes have traditionally been taken on paper—sometimes on the pages of the textbook, sometimes on other sheets of paper. Each approach has its own merits and demerits. A traditional textbook cannot offer a multi-faceted note-taking system in which notes are directly associated with specific locations in the text, and yet also independently accessible and sharable.
Traditional textbooks present material in linear format that is constricted to the outline of the content, this can make interacting with the content difficult. For example, to search a print textbook the user must start by looking at the indexed items to determine the section they need to examine to find the content they are searching for, and this is sometimes awkward and time consuming. As a result, the ability of the users to review previously read material from the textbook may require reliance on the table of content, outlines they have generated, notes they have made in the textbook and memory. When using a textbook for a course, a reader who wishes to look ahead at new material may not have notes or other resources and thus must solely rely on the generic index, table of contents, or outline provided by the textbook. Printed textbooks rely on the linear presentation of material, as set forth in the table of contents, in the outline, index, and progression of the text, and generally have difficulty presenting multiple parallel themes or discussing the interacting effects of multiple factors or aspects presented within the textbook. The linear structure of both outline and material helps to maintain a single progression that aids a reader's memory, but the linear structure does not have the flexibility to accommodate the needs of all students by fostering understanding, and therefore the rigid structure of printed textbooks can detract from a reader's understanding by de-emphasizing interrelationships among topics.
A printed textbook offers limited capabilities for students, teachers and others to share information. The student usually reads the textbook independently, and there is no way for the teacher, fellow students, parents or mentors to supplement the student's reading experience effectively with timely and focused encouragement, elaboration, supplementary exposition, cautions (mistakes to avoid) or emphasis (things to focus on).
Thus there is a need to embed annotations and overlays into a digital textbook format that permits note-taking, handles richer non-linear outlines, supports multiple themes or traversals through the content, and facilitates more efficient contextual search. A digital textbook format of this type opens up the content to include and support sharable contributions by the student, the teacher, parents and others.
Limitations of Printed K-12 Textbooks:
Printed textbooks must be designed for a “typical student”, and cannot cater to the diverse needs of a varied student body. Since it is ordinarily not practical for students in the same class to use different textbooks, textbooks are designed for the “typical student” and classroom education focuses on that hypothetical “typical student”. When major distinctions exist among students who might otherwise be together in a class, the practicable solutions may be clumsy and costly, and often involve offering different classes with different textbooks, such as special education with remedial textbooks, college-oriented classes with advanced textbooks, and special classes for students who speak a foreign language at home.
Diverse students would surely benefit from diverse materials that could accommodate each student's individual needs; however, there is currently no practical way to assemble diverse material into a single book. Assembling varied course content into a single printed textbook designed to accommodate the needs of a diverse student body would cause printing costs to go up and make books heavier, and redundant content presented in a restricted format or linear outline could confuse students and teachers. Furthermore, the rigid format of a traditional textbook forces a separation between teaching and testing, and prevents the textbook from assisting the teacher in administering a personalized exam to reflect a student's unique status. Flexible service for diverse students at a high level requires the embedding, layering, and presentation of content disclosed by the present application. Our education system shows clear signs of stress as a result of the inability to meet the diverse needs of an international student body with materials that are well suited for each individual student's needs. For example, specialized schools, often in urban areas, have found success providing advanced education for a premium cost, indicating that generally available education in school systems and the school systems in rural areas lack the facilities to provide advanced education and thus are not able to provide advanced or gifted students with the same universal opportunities. Current educational systems also do not do well educating students who have challenges with standard textbooks due to dyslexia or dyscalculia, and yet possess ordinary or even superior intelligence. Such students may, for example, be able to understand the meaning and function of language and mathematics just as well as typical students, but do not readily comprehend symbolic representations in letters and numbers. They might learn much more through teaching methods that emphasize intuitive knowledge of the use of language and mathematics, and allow the student to recognize meanings that are implicit through the student's experience rather than by rote learning. Teachings oriented toward meaningful understanding might also be useful supplements for all students, but they cannot now be readily assimilated into standard textbooks in large part because of the format and structure of linear written methods for conveying information.
The root of the difficulties with current learning environments lies in the limitations of the printed, one-book-suits-all textbook. There is a need for a new form of textbook that offers each student a personalized learning opportunity through systems and interfaces that are designed to be adapted and custom tailored to the educational needs, learning styles and preferences of the individual student. Diverse student learning experiences arising from such a multi-functional textbook could cause confusion in the classroom—both between students and teachers and among students—so it will be important for the new form of textbook to be able to pass on student experiences and comments from student to teacher and provide a framework for students to share their experiences with one another. Providing electronic mechanisms for acquiring and sharing content and experiences between students and teachers is also important because students that have grown up using modern technology may also be more accustomed to engaging by sharing and interacting with each other as a means of contextualizing and understanding content. The preference of some students may be two-way interaction as a means of learning as opposed to single direction absorption of information from a standard textbook.
Thus, there is a need for a new way to organize collections of information such as electronic textbooks, in a manner which permits textbook authors or users to define different paths through the information, and which retains these paths, and information about these paths, allowing them to be made available for the benefit of other users.
Color-blindness is another limitation that is not always addressed by standard textbooks. The colors used in diagrams and figures in printed books are designed for the student with typical vision, and cannot be readily personalized for each color-blind student to a palette that best conveys information to the student's visual sensitivity. Thus, there is also a need for a new form of textbook that can morph the color palette in its diagrams to respond to the requirements of a color-blind student, which could thereby also be responsive to the personal color preferences of all students.
Beyond these evident limitations, a wider issue that impacts every student, because students are all different and it is not clear that every student should be forced onto a single path by a “typical student” text. Students can potentially learn to understand the subject matter better while also learning more about themselves and how they learn, but this potential can only be realized when students are able to choose among various modes of learning and optional supplements, while receiving the guidance that they need from the textbook to make informed choices. Thus there is a need to develop an electronic textbook that provides these capabilities.
Limitations of Printed College & Post-Graduate Textbooks:
In addition to the above limitations, printed textbooks in higher education present a plethora of problems including: exorbitant cost and obsolescence, inefficient presentation of complex knowledge in appropriate depth, absence of linking up of content with other sources of information, difficulty fitting content efficiently into a wider curriculum, and student challenges with carrying knowledge forward after graduation.
Cost and Obsolescence:
The high cost of printed textbooks for higher education merits attention, it was estimated at $1,200 for the 2012-2013 academic year for College education in the United States. The high pace of obsolescence in textbooks forces down the value of used textbooks, thereby increasing the cost of ownership for students who resell textbooks. These statistics call into question the lasting value of books students purchase for their personal libraries. The lag time that often postpones publication until well after the author completes work is another concern in a setting of rapid obsolescence. It makes sense to shift to an alternative method of providing textbooks that hastens publication, reduces production costs and permits regular, fully-functional updates to existing textbooks.
Presenting Complex Knowledge in Depth:
Current educational methods that rely on printed textbooks, which lack adaptive capabilities and cannot be coordinated with the web, cannot keep up with the decentralized global research enterprise and the proliferation of shared knowledge on the web. Linear outline and linear page sequence are the joint organizing principles of a printed book, so current traditional textbooks are incapable of keeping up with new information. A book can also offer one or more separate lists of specialized items like figures or exercises to supplement the outline; however, there is no systematic means for rendering relationships between topics that cut across different segments of the outline. Nor is there a good way of highlighting the collective importance of relationships or themes that spread across different segments. Nor is there any good way of navigating through the book to see only those sections that deal with a single theme in the proper order. The tools in printed textbooks that are presently available to present complex material and promote understanding of complex matters are essentially limited to interpolated comments and diagrams, themselves trapped in the linear sequence of the book and visible only at that one point. Thus, there is a clear need for an electronic textbook that is built around the concept of a fully general non-linear outline that can make arbitrary relationships visible and present distinct traversal paths for each of the diverse themes presented in the book. There is also a need for an overlay system in the electronic textbook that allows faculty and students to add and share comments at any point in the book and generate full traversal paths through the book.
Curricula Involving Multiple Textbooks:
Inefficient cross-referencing between textbooks is a major drain on a student's energy and understanding in higher education. Everything would be much easier for students and faculty if textbooks could cross-refer effortlessly, and effectively interoperate. For example, most students in higher education regularly take courses in different but closely related disciplines, often for the purpose of assimilating interrelated knowledge, methods, and perspectives. Consequently, many individual courses need more than one textbook to fully cover the material presented. At present, there is no way for printed textbooks to interact in a single curriculum, nor is there a way for faculty to effectively offer detailed traversal paths that could substitute or augment direct for in-person interaction. Thus, there is a need for electronic textbooks that can be integrated in a common configuration, offering the student traversal guides that lead to mastery of joint or related content.
Linking to References:
When reading a printed textbook, access to references is at best cumbersome. Nonetheless, it seems clear that one of the greatest potential values of a modern higher education textbook would stem from its usefulness as a superior access point to a vast and burgeoning body of literature. The service of providing access to a vast changing and constantly growing body of literature cannot be provided without offering the student direct access to cited references. Providing access to a vast and changing, constantly growing body of literature will only be practicable when the textbook can be kept up to date at reasonable cost while continuing to offer direct and immediate access to current references.
“Direct Access” to broader content can be implemented in different ways, for example: access can be provided to the document as a whole, direct access can be provided from within the referring point to the point where the specific cited passage resides, or access can be provided by adding optional capability of temporary transit from the original point of reference to a native presence at the remote website that serves the reference, with the option of direct return at any time to the point of departure. Thus, there is a need for an electronic textbook that can effectuate such access. Once electronic textbooks have this capability, service providing websites will step up to provide these varying degrees of access, allowing linking to a specific passage and optional native access when appropriate.
Fitting Efficiently into a Wider Curriculum:
The educational styles normally supported by a collection of linear printed textbooks do not accord well with the comprehensive perspective required for mastery of a curriculum by students and faculty. Although it is well known that many students benefit from both reading and hearing complex material, the higher education teacher is often required to devote lecture time to clarifying issues with the textbook readings, filling in gaps in content, updating obsolete passages, and explaining other passages in greater depth. This is an awkward and inefficient approach that is not fully satisfying for teacher or student, consumes valuable lecture time and can create a sense of tension between lecture and textbook. In this changing world adequate textbooks do not always exist, and when the teacher develops supplementary readings to fill the gaps or extend available coverage, it is often difficult to coordinate the new material with the existing curriculum. Thus, there is a need for electronic textbooks that are presented within the setting of an overlay or dynamic user interface that reflects the teacher's pedagogical requirements, allowing the faculty member to insert comments of all types, point out relationships, change the order of presentation, insert new material, and sometimes override elements of the material entirely.
Departmental faculty may work together to craft a consistent curriculum that integrates diverse textbooks and fills in the gaps, but there may be no efficient way to embody their efforts at the required level of detail in a form of documentation that can stand the test of time and conform and adapt to changes to the material or to the university curriculum and course catalog. Thus, there is a need for a general system that can serve as an umbrella structure, providing and engaging with multiple sources of content such as two or more electronic textbooks and guiding students through a curriculum that extends across them; such a structure would support the assimilation of supplementary materials provided by the faculty and preserve superior teaching materials at the detail level in a lasting and dynamic format. In such a general system, an overarching curriculum can be readily extended beyond the setting of a single course to cover an entire program.
Difficulties with Carrying Knowledge Forward:
Institutions of higher education are natural places for energy to be invested in organizing and integrating knowledge, and it makes sense for them to build upon these efforts to provide lifelong educational services for their graduates. However, at present no efficient framework exists for the ongoing efforts of faculties in updating and expanding their knowledge base and curricula to be usefully disseminated to their graduates. The natural approach is a “living curriculum” in the form of overlay and supplementary material provided by the faculty that organizes and presents the information in electronic textbooks that is being regularly updated. A setting and system of this kind for presenting and curating information could also shelter and support ongoing communications by faculty sharing knowledge learned through their own experience to students and graduates in a relevant way. It would be quite possible for academic efforts of this kind, building upon electronic textbooks as their springboard, to become the foremost guides to professional information on the web. Thus, there is a need for an effective overlay system that integrates well with electronic textbooks and allows the fruits of ongoing collective faculty curriculum efforts to be shared with graduates as well as current students and regularly updated in a cost-effective way.
Urgent Need:
These challenges are intensifying. As society grows more complex and the pace of social change continues to accelerate, the gap between course content and application is widening. As more and more resources are freely available on the web and search providers become increasingly effective, the value added by an academic program is likely to diminish unless the program can integrate the web as a resource included within its more structured and formal offerings. As knowledge deepens, increasing specialization requires a proliferation of classes, which in turn leads to smaller class sizes and higher costs per student. There is a compelling need for new educational tools built around electronic textbooks and overlays that can empower educators to offer efficiently the benefits of their understanding to their students in coursework as well as after graduation.
Need for New Methods and New Insights:
Similar to language, visual representation is a longstanding human skill. The two skills are complementary and have different strengths. For example, visual representation of content can be processed more quickly than language based content. There is a need to coordinate language with map and diagram at a high level through computer displays based on innovative software. There is a need for techniques like the non-linear outline in the form of an overlay that blend language with visual representation.
Facing burgeoning complexity there is a need for tools and systems that are adapted away from the rigid linear form of a printed book, which is rooted in the ancient traditions of memorization and subsequent recitation of spoken words. The structure of linear systems supports linear thought, which has limitations. By contrast, visual analysis takes us almost effortlessly to the big picture. There is a need for techniques that overlay two or more alternative organizations of the same constructs (e.g. interpretations, systems of logic, causal structures, visual renderings, etc.) that allow the visual field to assist in clarifying complex meanings.
Verbal analysis and visual analysis are two distinct mental capabilities. Current information tools such as textbooks predominantly rely on verbal analysis, thus limiting the student's ability to adapt to their personal preferences, and failing to support the ability to teach students to bring verbal and visual analysis together and apply them in balance in the learning process. There is a need for techniques like the “dwordle” exercise, “visual logic” and drawing with meanings” that can help the student to learn how to coordinate visual and verbal capabilities in productive thought. As access to knowledge and information deepens and extends, students face increasing complexity. There is a need for systematic tools that allow students, readers, and authors to bring the highest qualities of verbal and visual analysis to bear using tools like the closely-coupled “display field” and “tabular grid”, which represent complex material in both visual and verbal forms, and permit us to move at will between the two, seamlessly and spontaneously.
Knowledge is important in modern societies, not least because of the great complexity of the world. With the growing body of knowledge and data, there is a need for tools that help individuals (students, faculty, authors, readers, users etc.) to cope with complexity and keep up with the pace of change.
New knowledge takes shape within the setting of existing knowledge. When a user's (e.g. student, faculty, author, reader, etc.) creative thoughts and new ideas are emerging, it can be difficult for the user to sustain the creative process at a high level because the flux of potential ideas that cannot be retained in memory. Existing knowledge, which has been held in memory of the past can be questioned and disrupted during the creative process. Unfolding ideas, which are often tentative and unstructured, may not yet be fixed in memory and indeed should not be fixed for them to be subject to change. Potential ideas that have not yet been articulated are the aim of the creative process, but those potential ideas have not yet taken shape in conscious thought. Disruption of existing knowledge, ever-changing configurations of working ideas, and elusiveness of potential ideas, are all hallmarks of the creative process. Mental energy can be wasted in confusion and creative opportunities can bemissed.
Confusion itself is not the problem, because confusion can be a fertile state in which new knowledge readily comes forth. The primary concern is losing touch with valuable ideas, losing track of creative progress, and ending the creative session without making any progress. In an effort to protect oneself from this, a mental effort may be made to hold on to one's working ideas and tie them back to existing knowledge so that nothing will be lost; unfortunately, holding on mentally in this way can stifle the natural flow of creativity, slow progress and tempt one to give up before full potential is reached. To circumvent these obstacles, all there is a need jot down notes or make drawings along the way. What one writes down can be preserved for later review and can be safely released from memory. The act of writing something down in this context, can allow one to let go and stimulate one to launch a fresh train of thought. Creative thought thus alternates between actively thinking, and pausing to making notes and refresh ourselves.
One's brains are the basis for a thought process. Modern education systems demonstrate that the brain learns from experience and is readily trainable. Although education rewards effective thinking, the curriculum does not specifically focus on teaching a student how to think. Students don't learn how to observe their thought process, how to think effectively about thinking, or how to evaluate their habits of thought and enhance them so that they can think more productively. One can learn to think by solving problems, and as one matures increasingly complex problems can be solved, but this may be accomplished without learning creativity. Common sense suggests that if an individual thoughtfully observes their creative process, they can discover ways to enhance it.
Interactive User Interface:
The nodes and connectors in the electronic textbook have both verbal and visual qualities. The nodes can have meaning and texts are attached to them like titles in an outline, but they also operate like visible objects that can be displayed in many different views in corresponding positions with the positions providing context and conveying meaning. The user can appreciate their dual aspects of system function and display, and consequently expect them to magically behave as they do. The intuitively straightforward behavior of the system and display is accomplished by calculations performed by computer processes and then presented via displays that project and render the context of the content in accordance with the needs of the user and the nature of the content. There is a good deal of sophistication involved in the software that accomplishes this, which operates invisibly in the background to maintain a seamless user interface.